When we think of Vikings, we think of fierce Scandinavians who plundered through Western Europe. This is true, but then again not. The book Wij Vikingen provides the latest insights about the Vikings and their relationship with the Netherlands.
Who were the Vikings? It is a misconception that these were marauding Danes or Norwegians, according to the book We Vikings. In the sources from the Viking Age (800-1000) the word Viking literally means pirate. So you weren't born a Viking, it was a way of life. You could farm perfectly in the summer and 'go Viking' in the winter. Nor were it just Scandinavians who undertook these raids. Residents of Frisia, the entire coastal area from Bruges to Bremen, have also taken part in these raids as pirates.
This is a good example of one of the recent insights that have been given a place in the book. Frisians were not only victims of the Vikings, but also part of a shared culture. The thirteen authors of We Vikings are scientists and curators, and experts in various fields such as the early medieval landscape, ships from the Viking age, the clash between the Christian Franks and the pagan Vikings, fashion of the time and the main trading place dorestad. They have linked existing ideas to the most recent researches and finds, or their changed interpretations, thus giving a new picture of the Vikings.
The fact that the Frisians also plundered is another such changed interpretation, namely of legal texts from the Lex Frisionum. This is the code drawn up by the Franks from about 800 for the subject Frisians. This states that Frisians were punishable if they 'went Viking' within the Frankish realm, unless they were forced. This implies that they also casually joined the Vikings to plunder. So fine in itself, but not within the Frankish border.
Together, the authors of Wij Vikingen paint a different picture of Frisia in the ninth and tenth centuries, the era in which the Frisians were regularly plundered by the Vikings. However, this book makes clear that their mutual contact went further than just victimization.
Cultural Similarities
An important change in the way of looking at Frisia in the Viking Age is the shared North Sea culture. Scientists increasingly agree that the area has been part of this culture since the fifth century, along with England and the Scandinavian countries. The people spoke almost the same language, worshiped the same gods like Odin and Thor, wore similar clothes and traded all kinds of goods among themselves. They reached each other by boats across the North Sea, or as the book nicely puts it:the then highway of Europe. Traveling by water was easier for the inhabitants of Frisia than traveling through the interior, which consisted of wild peatlands.
In 695 the Christian Franks conquered Dorestad, Frisia's most important trading town, and the rest of the area gradually followed in the course of the eighth century. This did not go without a fight and in the same period the famous missionary Boniface was murdered by rebellious Frisians near Dokkum (754). The Danes were not happy with the advancing Franks and the approach of the northern border of the Frankish empire. In response, they began plundering Frisia in 810. Medieval sources indicate that a Danish king conquered Frisia and collected taxes there, around 800. How this should be interpreted is still a matter of debate. The Danes saw Frisia as their area of power, but was this tax collection historically correct or symbolic, in the form of a lump sum payment after an attack?
That the power struggle between the Danes and the Franks was the reason for the plundering Vikings in Frisia is also a fairly recent image. Until the Franks took power, the pagan North Sea culture did not benefit at all from looting in its own trading area. Subsequently, the Frankish emperors protected the coasts of Frisia as best they could, but with internal problems – and thus priorities other than their northern border – the number of Viking attacks on Frisia increased.
The Vikings showed no respect for the recently founded churches and their riches, such as priestly robes, mass books, silver candlesticks and ditto censers. Archaeological finds show that the first churches were made of wood and clay and therefore easy to conquer. In addition, they dealt a major blow to the Franks by destroying these churches, killing its missionaries and taking the riches with them. Since the clergy were the scribes at the time, much has been made of these looting and the atrocities surrounding it. They just give a distorted picture.
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In the name of the Franks
The book puts the Viking Age in a different, more realistic, light. The period in which Frisia was actively looted did not last very long. In addition, the Danes were even vassals of the Franks here for decades. As mentioned, the attacks started in 810 in response to the approaching Frankish frontier. Two hundred Danish ships devastated the Frisian islands and were bought off with a lot of silver pieces. An initial period followed and from the thirties the Vikings mainly targeted trading cities, with Dorestad as the absolute topper. This rich city faced at least sixteen attacks between 834 and 863.
Then the Franks struck a deal with Danish princes and pawned Frisia, intending to stop looting by other Vikings. It is unclear whether this failed or failed to captivate the Danes, but this was followed by the most violent and disruptive wave of attacks. Between 879 and 892, the Vikings also overwintered and plundered into the Frankish empire, as far as Cologne. After a quiet century, between 990 and 1010 a new wave of attack occurred on northern coastal towns.
Back to square one
By 800 the whole area was not only Frankish but also Christianized. However, this did not mean that all Frisians professed the Christian faith, the age-old ties within the pagan North Sea culture were too strong for that. Christianization was a gradual process that could not get off the ground without Frankish help. They invested money in the foundation and furnishing of churches. The missionaries, who entered the mound area from the central ecclesiastical city of Utrecht, were protected by Frankish soldiers.
To promote the new faith and stimulate the imagination of the pagan Frisians, the missionaries brought with them precious travel altars, silver props and religious books. The first mission churches were visited not only by recent converts, but also by pagans who brought their offerings there. Children were baptized there and the dead were buried. However, the Viking attacks, with the accompanying looting of these churches, caused a huge setback in the Christianization process.
New research shows that the Christianization in Frisia was subsequently tackled systematically. From 950 Frisia got parishes, each with a stone parish church, which automatically turned the inhabitants into Christian parishioners. Faith was no longer a choice. This master plan was rolled out from Utrecht to the rest of Frisia within fifty years. In the first Christianization period, for example, about twenty mission churches were built in present-day Friesland and Groningen, compared to eighty parish churches in the year 1000. Then the Vikings were no longer able to reverse this Christianization process and the church would only expand further.
No wet feet
What did Frisia look like in the Viking Age? Wij Vikingen will also discuss this, but from the current Frisian point of view. The book starts with the landscape but only outlines the mound area of present-day Friesland and Groningen. It was then a lot wetter and the sea moved further inland, especially during storm surges. To keep house and hearth dry, people lived on artificial hills, mounds, on which their farms, fields and livestock could be found.
The book devotes no less than two chapters to living in this salt marsh landscape, while Frisia also consisted of peat areas with large rivers through them and the dunes of the current west coast. These other landscapes are touched upon by historian Hans Mol and archaeologist Gilles de Langen in their new landscape map of the period. But they, or other authors, say nothing further about the Frisians who lived in the settlements in the dune area or the peat.
An exception is made for Dorestad, the most important trading city of Frisia. This city lay like a three-kilometre long ribbon on the Rhine near what is now Wijk bij Duurstede. Dorestad was a link between traders from Scandinavia in the north and the Frankish interior. Both rich and important to the Franks, so an ideal target for the Vikings. These riches are also reflected in the book, including the famous gold cloak pin from the National Museum of Antiquities.
The book gives many more examples of archaeological finds that show that medieval society was more prosperous than you might think. Jewellery, high-quality fabrics, coins, glass and toys:these kinds of objects can also be found on the mounds and not just in the rich trading cities. We know how society was set up from the Lex Frisionum mentioned earlier. There were different classes with a distinction between noble, free, unfree (often temporary, for example to pay off a debt) and at the very bottom the slaves, who were someone's property.
Different visions
There is a downside to the fact that the book is written by multiple authors. They sometimes contradict each other or make different claims. For example, Annemarieke Willemsen (curator of the Middle Ages at the National Museum of Antiquities) writes that the Viking attacks start before 800, while other authors keep it at 810. However, this is inherent in a field where the sources are not always clear and are still interpreted differently, we think.
In addition to chapters on specific topics, the book also provides translated or retranslated texts from medieval sources about the Viking Age. These texts give a nice picture of how people thought about the pagan Vikings and ditto Frisians. This was rather colored as only the Christian Franks had a written culture. For example, they wrote Annales, yearbooks detailing the events within the empire, including the Viking raids. The Christian missionaries described their missionary work in the heathen areas including all kinds of miraculous incidents and canonizations of steadfast Christians who were martyred.
Wij Vikingen was published in the exhibition of the same name in the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, but it is fine to read on its own. It is clearly not an exhibition catalogue, but it does contain beautiful, page-filling photos of spectacular objects that can be seen in the exhibition. The absolute masterpiece in this book even gets a double page:the Scandinavian horn with an accompanying background story. All in all a nice book with interesting new insights about the Netherlands in the Viking Age. It even contains research that has not yet been officially published, and which has already started the discussion on NEMO Kennislink.